Why Social Media is Important for Marketing

Due to competition, businesses have to focus on avenues beyond the traditional marketing channels. One such viable marketing tool is social media. If you are wondering why you need to have a proper social media marketing plan, this article provides you with effectual reasons.

Parul Solanki

"How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?"― Seth Godin, Guerrilla Marketing for Home-Based Businesses

There was a time when you mentioned that the business or website needed a more concrete social media marketing strategy, you were simply laughed at. After all, isn't Facebook all about connecting with long-lost buddies and Twitter all about private rants? Seems not. While social media may have been a fluky zone for marketers previously, it has gained prominence in recent years as one of the best ways to create brand awareness and visibility of the product. Moving beyond idle chats and meaningless tweets, social media marketing has changed the entire marketing scenario.

Due to the huge role that it plays in facilitating interaction between people, social media has become a potent marketing tool that lets you communicate with existing and potential users. This is the reason many businesses are shifting their marketing budgets away from traditional marketing alternatives to social media and search engine marketing. This MarketingWit article explains why it is important for a marketer to tap into the power of social networking.

Top 7 Reasons Why Social Media is Important for Marketing

Fastest Way to Spread the Word and Increase Exposure If you are marketing a new product and opt for traditional marketing channels, such as television advertising, what do you think would be the recall rate of your advertisement? Not very significant, considering we are flooded with television and newspaper advertisements every day. As compared to this, the marketing on social media channels, such as online advertisements, social media websites, and blogs can help in getting the message across, more efficiently. A study conducted by Google and Ipsos OTX MediaCT to study the effects of online video advertisements as compared to traditional TV advertisements. It was found that online video ads fared much better than traditional TV commercials.

Ability to Find Future Clients The worldwide popularity and the staggering reach of popular social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn ensure that marketers can locate and target their consumers with ease. Since millions of people spend a huge amount of time on social networks, you can target your customers on these social networks.

This does not mean you can jump the social media bandwagon without any strategy. As more and more brands use popular networks, like Facebook and Twitter, you need to have a proper strategy that aims at conversation and relationships, to be able to compete for the attention of customers. With the right social media strategy, the marketer can also ensure that he will not only find future clients, but is also able to retain them in the long run.

Lead Generation In marketing, leads are generated when people are interested and inquire about the products or services. One way to generate online leads is by social networking. The large chunk of online users that the business can connect with allow in generating leads. By promotions, online contests, and other marketing campaigns, it is possible to generate leads for the products or businesses using social media.

Communication with the Customer Social media platforms allow people to communicate with one another. It is not just about broadcasting a message but rather listening and responding. As a marketer, you can step into social platforms and build conversations with potential clients. This, of course, has to be done with defined goals in mind. Random, meaningless talk has no value for customers. The goal of communication should be to build and enhance customer relationship and also provide referral marketing advantage. Customer engagement and networking with users can lead to word-of-mouth referrals for the product which, in turn, is great for marketing the business or product.

For effective communication, it is important to monitor what people are saying to you and about you. This can include your areas of expertise and competitors.

Gives Brands a Personality on Social Networks Creating a relatable online presence gives brands a personality. Creating a brand personality or humanized brand means being genuine and passionate about whatever the brand is and does. It has been found that people respond most to brands which are perceptibly and consistently authentic and have a genuine presence. The brand will get the right push if businesses are active on social networking sites. Their interaction and how they project the brand help in shaping its personality.

Importance of Customer Feedback and Preferences With social media, it is very easy to get customer feedback and preferences. By staying in touch with the customers and addressing their queries, the marketer learns their views of the product and businesses. Tracking and monitoring this data can help the business in working out the most effective ways to increase social media network and capture the market. As compared to this, the traditional method of feedback collection is often extremely cumbersome and expensive.

Moreover, feedback is important for detecting potential problems and hazards. When problems are pointed out by customers on social media, companies can take the necessary steps to address the problem. This, in turn, enhances the credibility of the social network.

Reduces Marketing Expenses Social media marketing helps in reducing marketing expenses to a great extent. Compared to traditional marketing mediums, like television advertising, social networks are the best and the most cost-effective way to reach out to customers. It can also reduce support staff, and hence, help in cutting down cost. If it is a website that you are marketing, social media can help in increasing the traffic and provide much-needed help for SEO strategies. In today's competitive world, it is vital to take advantage of the social media marketing. In many ways, it has become a norm in business marketing. Brushing it aside as a mere tool for kids and the inability to understand its importance will only serve as a disadvantage for your business.

While doing so, it is also important to avoid common social media mistakes. Being overly promotional rather than engaging the customers in a meaningful way can be a catastrophic social media mistake. Instead of trying to sell, a marketer's goal should be to build relationships. Once businesses understand and implement marketing plans that aim at relationship building and brand building, they are sure to succeed in their marketing endeavors on the social media networks.